1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a thin-type display, and more particularly, to a flexible display bendable in one direction.
2. Description of the Related Art
Liquid crystal display devices, organic EL display devices and the like have increasingly been demanded as flat displays for monitors, TV sets and the like because of their flat screens. And, the demands for the liquid crystal display devices, the organic EL display devices and the like may be increased in various fields because they are thin and light in addition to having flat screens. In other words, installations of the displays to various locations are under planning by taking advantages that the display devices are thin.
The demands are, for example, that the displays are attached to columns in stations or the displays are attached to curved portions between a wall and a ceiling of a train. In order to attach the displays to such locations, the displays must be flexible (bendable). However, in the conventional liquid crystal display devices or the conventional organic EL display devices, wires, thin film transistors (TFTs), pixels and the like are formed over a glass substrate having a certain thickness, and therefore, it is difficult to bend displays thereof.
In order to make the substrate flexible, for example, aplastic substrate may be used. However, with current technologies, it is difficult to directly form the TFTs and the like over the plastic substrate. A technology of forming the TFTs over the glass substrate and transferring the TFTs formed over the glass substrate to the plastic substrate is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication JP2005-099410 (Patent Document 1). In Patent Document 1, it is described that, in order to transfer the TFTs onto the plastic substrate, the TFTs, connection wires and the like are formed into special shapes.
According to the technology described in Patent Document 1, since the TFTs are formed over the glass substrate and then transferred to the plastic substrate, the TFTs can be arranged over the plastic substrate. However, Patent Document 1 does not have description about a problem of distortion applied to respective components of the flexible display when the flexible display is bent, after the flexible display is manufactured.
That is, when the display is bent, distortion is applied to data lines, scanning lines and the like, which are components of the substrate of the display. And when the distortion becomes large, the data lines, scanning lines and the like are broken. It is a problem that the display becomes defective by bending, even if the bendable display is manufactured.
Of flexible displays, displays flexible in all directions are not so high in demand. At present, displays required to be flexible in only one direction and not required to be flexible in the other directions, such as displays set to columns in stations, are high in demand. An object of the present invention is to realize a flexible display in which breakage of a wire or the like does not occur even if the display is bent in one direction.